Motion

MOTION
LINEAR MOTION: This involves a body moving in a straight line under the action of
forces.
Terms used
A. Speed: this is the rate of change of distance moved with time. It is expressed

as .

Its S.I units are metres per second ( )other units are

Thus or

Example
1. A cat moved from point A to B 20m apart in 1hour. What was its speed?
Solution
Time

2. Change in and in
Solution:

, ,

B. Displacement: this is the distance moved in a specified direction. Its units are
metres ( ).
C. Velocity: this is the rate of change of displacement with time. Its S.I units are
other units are
D. Constant / uniform velocity: if a body moves equal distances in equal times it is
said to be moving with a uniform velocity.
Example: an athlete covered a certain distance in a given time as in the table
below
Distance (m) 0 5 10 15 20 25 60
Time (s) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

From the table, for every 5m the athlete takes 1 second. Therefore the uniform

speed of the athlete is

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Graphs of uniform velocity

Distance – time graph Velocity – time graph

Graphs of non-uniform velocity

Distance covered by a body may not increase by the same amounts in the same
time. This makes its velocity to keep changing.
Distance – time graph Velocity – time graph

E. Acceleration: this is the rate of change of velocity with time.

. Where is the initial velocity (when timing

started), is the final velocity (when timing stopped) and is the time taken
Its S.I units are metres per square second ( ).
Note: If a body’s velocity is increasing, the body is said to be accelerating,
otherwise it is decelerating / retarding.
Examples:
1. A saloon car started from rest and accelerated to in 10seconds. Find
its acceleration.

Solution: ,

2. The table below shows the velocity of a car at different times

velocity ( )
Time (s)

Calculate the acceleration of the car between

i. 10th and 20th second ii. 20th and 25th second
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Solution:

, and

(i)

( )

The negative means the car was decelerating

at a rate of

Questions
1. A train travels at and accelerates to in 10s, calculate its
acceleration in .
2. k
F. Uniform acceleration: a body moves with a uniform acceleration if its velocity
increases by equal amounts in equal times.
Example:
1. The table below shows the velocity of a car in a given time.
velocity ( ) 0 10 20 30 40
Time (s) 0 5 10 15 20

From the table, for every 10 the car takes 5s.

Therefore the uniform acceleration of the car is

2. A car is moving at 108 is uniformly brought to rest in 15s. Find its

acceleration.

Its acceleration is
Graphs of uniform acceleration
Velocity – time graph displacement – time graph

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 Motion

Graph of uniform deceleration Graph of non – uniform deceleration

Velocity – time graph Velocity – time graph

Calculation of distance from a velocity – time graph

The area under a velocity – time (V – t) graph gives the distance travelled.
Examples
1. From the figures below, find the distance travelled by the cyclist from point A
to point B.

Solution:
From graph 1, distance covered
Distance travelled .
From graph 2, distance covered ( )

Or distance covered

Distance travelled .
2. A motorist moved from one center to the other.

(i) When is the motorist moving with constant

speed?
(ii) Calculate the retardation of the motorist
(iii) Calculate the distance moved by the motorist
(iv) Calculate the distance moved by the motorist
in the 6th second.
(v) Describe the motion of the motorist.

Solution:
(i) Between AB the motorist moved with constant speed of for 4seconds.
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(ii) Retardation is along BC;

Retardation is
(iii) ( ) or

(iv) Distance covered ( ) or

(v) Between OA;

The motorist moved from rest with a uniform acceleration of for 4s

Between AB the motorist moved with constant speed of for 4s.
Between BC the motorist moved to rest with a uniform deceleration of
for 4s

Questions
1. A car moves from rest with a uniform acceleration of for the first 20s. It
continues at a constant velocity for the next 30s and finally takes 10s to
decelerate uniformly to rest.
(a) Calculate the constant speed reached after 20s.
(b) Sketch a velocity – time graph for the whole journey.
(c) Calculate the distance travelled by the car.

2. A car travelling with a uniform velocity of for 5s brakes and then

comes to rest under a uniform deceleration in 8s.
(i) Sketch a velocity – time graph for the motion
(ii) Find the deceleration
(iii) Find the total distance travelled.
3. A lift accelerates uniformly from rest for 3s. It then moves at a uniform
velocity of for 15s then decelerates uniformly for 2s before coming to
rest.
By sketching a velocity – time graph, find the total distance travelled by the
lift.

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4. The figure shows the motion of a car with an

acceleration of .
(i) Describe the motion of the car
(ii) Find the distance moved after 50s
(iii) Find the total distance travelled by the car.

Equations of motion
If a body moves with initial velocity, accelerates uniformly to attain a final
velocity and covers a distance, in time its acceleration is got from
( )

( )

Since

( ) ( ) ( )

( )

From ( ) * +

Since ( )
Calculations
1. A body started from rest and accelerated uniformly at until it attains a
speed of . Find the distance the body covered and the time taken.
Solution:
Using

Using

2. A car moving with uniform acceleration of increases its speed

from to . Calculate the total time taken and the distance
moved.
Solution:
Using
Using

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 Motion

Motion under gravity

Every object moving under the influence of gravity has an acceleration called
acceleration due to gravity . When a body is falling
freely and when a bogy is thrown upward.
Acceleration due to gravity is defined as the rate of change of velocity of an object
falling freely.
Example:
1. An orange fell from a tree 20m high. Find its speed at the time it hit the
ground.
Solution

Using
The stone hit the ground with a speed of

2. A bomb dropped from an air craft flying at a height of 10,000m. With what
velocity did it hit the ground?
Solution

Using
The bomb hit the ground with a speed of

3. A ball is thrown from the ground to the top of flag pole. If the ball returns to
the ground in 6s, find the height of the flag pole.
Solution: let time from the ground to top of flag be . At the turning point of the
ball, it is momentarily at rest ( ).
Time from ground back to ground is

Using
Using

The height of flag pole is

4. A stone is thrown vertically upwards with a velocity of . Neglecting air
resistance find the
i. maximum height reached
ii. time taken before reaching the ground

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Solution:
To reach maximum point;
(i) Using
(ii) Using
Time taken to reach the ground
5. A bullet is fired vertically from a gun held 2m above the ground reaches a
maximum height in 4seconds. Calculate
i. its initial velocity
ii. total distance travelled by the bullet to hit the ground.
Solution:
To reach maximum point;
(i) Using
(ii) Using
Total distance travelled by bullet to hit the ground

Experiment to determine acceleration due to gravity

a) the pendulum is suspended from a retort stand starting with a length of the thread,
20.0 cm as in the figure below

b) The pendulum bob is displaced through a small angle to the vertical and then released.
c) The time for 20 oscillations is measured and recorded.

d) Time, , for one oscillation is obtained from .

e) The acceleration due to gravity, g, is obtained from

The tick-tape timer

A ticker-timer is an electric device which consists of a rapidly vibrating hammer that
prints dots onto a length of paper pulled through it. The dots formed are used in
studying motion of a trolley attached on the paper.
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If distance between two consecutive dots is

- constant then the trolley moves with uniform velocity

- Increasing then the trolley is accelerating

- Decreasing the trolley is decelerating.
Note: If the hammer makes 50dots in one second, its frequency is 50Hz.

1 dot is made in

Thus the time interval between two consecutive dots is 0.02s. This time is called a
tick.
E.g.
b. The time taken to cover 9 intervals (10 dots)
c. The time taken to cover 5 intervals (6 dots)
d. The time taken to cover 12 intervals (13 dots)
Calculations
1. Find the speed of the tape as in the figure below if the tick-timer operates at a
frequency of 50Hz.

Solution: Tick

Time taken to cover 5cm (4 intervals)

2. The figure shows a ticker tape

pulled by a trolley through a ticker-
timer. Describe the motion of a
trolley, if the frequency is 50Hz.
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Solution
Solution: Tick

Time taken to cover 4cm (2 intervals)

Time taken to cover 8cm (5 intervals)

If the trolley moves from left to right, it is accelerating since its speed is increasing.

Or total time taken

( )

THE PROJECTILE MOTION

A projectile is an object which when given an initial velocity moves under the
influence of gravity and is acted on by only its weight. The path taken by a projectile
is called trajectory.

is the initial velocity, is horizontal velocity

after time and is vertical velocity after time

When the ball hits the ground, it will cover

- a vertical distance with acceleration
- a horizontal distance with acceleration .

Example
1. A ball is thrown horizontally with a speed of from a top a building. If
it takes 2 seconds to reach the ground, find the height of the building.
Solution:
For vertical motion; [since the ball was thrown horizontally],

Using

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2. A stone is thrown horizontally with a velocity of from the edge of the

cliff 125m tall; find how far the stone landed from the bottom of the cliff.
Solution:
For vertical motion;
Using

For horizontal motion;

Using

The ball landed from the bottom of the cliff.

3. A bomb is released from a plane 5000m high with a velocity of . Find

the
(i) time it takes to reach the ground
(ii) horizontal distance it covers by the time it hits the ground
Solution:
For vertical motion;
Using

For horizontal motion;

Using

The bomb hits from the time it is released.

CIRCULAR MOTION
This is the motion of a body in a circle about a fixed point. The forces acting on the
body are
- its weight (acting downwards)
- centripetal force (acting towards the centre of motion). This keeps the body in
a circular path.
Circular motion is experienced by
- a whirled stone tied on string and centripetal
force is the tension in the string.
- a car or bicycle rider negotiating a corner and centripetal force is the frictional
force between the tyre and the ground.

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- an aircraft making a circular turn and centripetal force is the frictional force
between the wing and the air molecules.
- centrifuge which separates liquids of different densities

NEWTON’S LAWS OF MOTION

First law: Every object continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight
line unless acted upon by an external force.
Example: A rolling ball would keep rolling; a desk would remain in class room.
Inertia:
It is the tendency of a body to remain at rest or to keep moving with a uniform
velocity.
Examples:
- A passenger jerks forwards when a bus is suddenly stopped or jerks
backwards when a bus is suddenly started.
- Books placed on the cloth remain on table when the cloth is pulled faster.

Momentum
It is the product of mass of a body and its velocity. .
Its S.I units are or .
Example:
1. A bullet of mass 400g is fired from a gun with a velocity of . What is the
momentum of the bullet?

2. A body of mass 20kg is dropped and falls to the ground with a momentum of
800Ns. With what velocity did it have?

Second law: The rate of change of momentum of a body is directly proportional to

the applied force and it takes place in the direction of force.
Suppose a force F acts on an object of mass to cause a velocity change from to
, in time
Change in momentum and
Rate of change of momentum

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( )
Thus

A newton is a force required to give a body of mass 1kg an acceleration of .

Example:
1. A bullet of mass 20g is uniformly retarded at from 320 and brought to
rest in 0.05seconds. Calculate the retarding force.

, using

Retarding force
2. A car of mass 200kg is acted on by a force of 4000N, find its acceleration.

Using

3. A box of mass 80kg is raised vertically using a rope. If the tension in the rope
is 1000N find the acceleration of the box.

Weight of the box

Resultant force
Using

4. Two forces of 30N and 40N act perpendicularly on an object of mass 10kg as
shown in the figure below. Calculate the magnitude of acceleration of the
object.
Resultant force √ √
Using

Acceleration is

Conservation of linear momentum

It states that when two or more bodies collide, their total momentum remains
constant provided no external force acts on them.
In calculations we use total momentum before collision is equal to total collision
after collision
Collisions can either be elastic or inelastic
Elastic collision occurs when two bodies collide and move separately with different
velocities after collision.

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Inelastic collision occurs when two bodies collide and move with common/same
velocity after collision.

Examples:
1. A car of mass 6000kg moving with a velocity of collides and couples
with a stationary trunk of 3000kg. Find the velocity with which they move.
Let velocity of the car and trunk after collision be

( )

They move with a velocity of after collision

2. A ball A of mass 100g moving with a velocity of collides head-on with
ball B of mass 200g moving with a velocity of . Find their common
velocity after collision.
Let their common velocity be v

Taking ( )

They move with a velocity of in the direction of A

3. A ball P of mass 200g moving with a velocity of collides with a

stationary ball Q of mass 150g. If P moves backward with a velocity of
find the velocity of Q after collision.
Let velocity of Q after collision be v
Taking

Q moves with a velocity of in the direction of P

4. An arrow of mass 100g travelling at is shot in stationary wooden block

of mass 25kg placed on a smooth surface. Calculate the common velocity
after impact.

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Let their common velocity be v

Taking ( )

Q moves with a velocity of in the direction of the bullet.

Applications of momentum
1. A rocket acquires an equal and opposite momentum as the exhaust
gases. This makes it move upwards as the gases move backwards.
2. A filled balloon when released moves in an opposite direction as
that of escaping air.
3. A gun is held tightly when bullets are fired. The gun acquires
an equal and opposite momentum as that of the bullets

Example:
1. A bullet of mass 150g is fired with a speed of . The rifle recoils at a
speed of Find the mass of the rifle.

Mass of the rifle is

2. A bullet of mass 15g is fired from a gun of mass 3kg with a muzzle velocity of
42 . What is the velocity of the gun?

Velocity of the gun is

3. A bullet of mass 0.1kg is fired from a riffle of mass 5kg. The rifle recoils with a
velocity of . Calculate the velocity with which the bullet is fired.

Velocity of the bullet is

Impulse: This is the product of force and time taken for the two colliding objects.
.
Units are
Or it is the change in momentum when two bodies collide.

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Example:
1. A hammer hits a metal with a force of . If the impact lasts for 0.4s, calculate
the impulse due to this force.

Third law: To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

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